Anchored Life
Branching Coral
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Unpacking archived data...
"Nahema, voice log, go. If you're listening to this and you don't have lead poisoning, I am very jealous. If you're listening to this and you do have lead poisoning, I'm sorry I couldn't figure it out in time. Mea culpa.
"This is a typical Protean coral. It works differently than Earth coral. The gross morphology is a branching tree, like some species of Earth's extinct Acropora. We all call it coral because we know the word. But the difference matters.
"On Earth coral are basically tiny jellyfish living in stone houses. The jellyfish sting prey. They also let zooxanthellae live with them, houseguests who make food from the sun.
"On Proteus...I think what we're seeing here is actually a sponge acting as a landlord. The sponge makes a house. It rents space to these tiny coral polyps, which sting prey and capture sunlight as energy for the sponge.
"I think the sponge used to be in charge. But eventually the coral polyps got so good at their job that the sponge stopped pumping water and just lived off rent from the coral polyps. And to keep its tenants alive, it evolved a rocky shell — like Earth's sclerosponges.
"If I'm right, we should see other coral-sponge pairs that have worked out different deals. Each deal suited to a particular ecological niche."
Anchored Life / Corals
"In the early stages of the Holocene Collapse, the bleaching of coral became a metaphor for the breakdown of the social contract. The coral polyps betrayed and expelled their symbiotic algae, just as the ruling classes had betrayed the people.
"But necropolitics, which thrives on death, neutralized that metaphor by repeating it. Ghastly images of bone-white coral reefs became familiar. Like coral expelling its symbiotes under stress, people numbed by their own powerlessness expelled their concern. Like the foreigner, the refugee, and the subaltern, coral became an acceptably distant casualty. When your home is on fire, you do not think of the dying reef."
"Can the coral can be blamed for betraying the zooxanthellae? Can we demand ethical behavior from the powerless while the powerful feast? Yes, reefs helped regulate the climate. But no matter how hard they worked, or how close they kept their symbiotes, the Holocene Collapse would not have stopped. Pity the polyp, but do not blame it. There is some grace in that for the common man."
—Lucretia Kapoor, "Loaves and Fishes"